One News
February 13, 2004
More revelations in cop rape case
A former top
detective who investigated police rape claims is now being accused of having a
close relationship with the people he investigated.
A Rotorua woman says she was manipulated into group sex with several officers,
including Clint Rickards and - on one separate occasion - the CIB boss who
later led an inquiry into Rickards' behaviour.
A woman who suffered a family tragedy in the mid-1980s which brought her into
contact with Rotorua police says she developed a relationship with officer Brad Shipton.
She says that led to at least six group sex encounters with then-detective
Shipton, now a Tauranga city councillor, and Clint Rickards - now suspended
from his job as assistant commissioner in
The former Rotorua woman says she agreed to the group sex but now feels the men
betrayed a position of trust.
"I was vulnerable and really upset at the time and they preyed on those
emotions and that's what got me into that situation," she said.
One News has an affidavit signed by the woman in which
she claims one sex session involved Shipton and the former head of Rotorua CIB,
John Dewar.
Several years later Dewar investigated claims made by
Nicholas that she was raped and sexually violated with a police baton by police
officers Brad Shipton, Clint Rickards and Bob Schollum.
Asked whether John Dewar was a friend of Shipton's,
the woman told One News that he said that he was his boss and his friend and
that he had just moved to Rotorua.
However, former Detective Inspector John Dewar maintains his relationship with
the trio at the centre of the Nicholas allegations was strictly professional
and he denies any cover up.
He told the New Zealand Herald on February 2: "I would challenge anyone to
come forward and tell me what relationship I have with those men. We don't
socialise or go to each other's homes, we don't call
each other up."
Nicholas' allegations against Rickards, Shipton and Schollum are being
investigated by the police, the Police Complaints Authority and an independent
commission of inquiry.
The latest complainant says Clint Rickards would use a police car to drive her
to meet Shipton near Tauranga, and the trio would have sex, parked on the
roadside.
She says that on one occasion Rickards got a call out and wanted to "just
leave me there because he wanted to go to the call out". She says she
objected and made him take her back to Rotorua.
The woman says her last contact with the men was within the last two years.
She says at that time Rickards called her to ask if she was happily married.
One News tried to get a response from Dewar and his
lawyer about the allegations but they did not return calls. Neither did the
lawyers acting for Shipton and Rickards.